Welcome to MUSE—A Guide to Local Art & Culture!
From all of us at Nevada County Arts Council
By Eliza Tudor
In a world of fleeting pixels and digital overwhelm, we invite you to slow down and relish these pages.
In MUSE you will find adventures for every season, the intimacy of unique creative communities, and a prolifery of ideas and stories to last you through 2025. MUSE is motivated by the passion and creativity of an extraordinary team, and is the tip of the iceberg of our work.
As an umbrella agency, we thrive on dialogue and partnership, and as a State-Local Partner with the California Arts Council we carry a special responsibility towards communities close to home in remaining alert to opportunities further afield.
From pro-bono consulting on arts funding and resources, public safety and emergency communications, and re-opening best practices during the pandemic years; to regranting recovery monies and advocating tirelessly for investment in our California Cultural Districts—we are all about empowering our local neighborhoods.
In 2022 we applied to the California Arts Council to administer workforce development funds through the California Creative Corps, putting artists to work in service to important community priorities across nineteen counties.
Thus it was that in 2023 and 2024, when the State was in deficit and arts funding scarce, we were able to extend the impact of recovery funding both across Northern California, and right here at home.
He had recognized a larger-scale need to harness rural voices in establishing a regional approach to the creative process as a transformational tool, and this larger-scale need continues to inspire and validate our trajectory in better serving our own local communities.
This year we will complete Culture Forward, the county’s first ever Arts and Culture Action Plan. Come spring we call upon you, and on communities across the county, to share your perspectives and help set our course. In a deeply unstable world, let us protect all that is good, and which—dare we say it—we take for granted (please take our survey on page xx!).
MUSE is a testament to our work to raise awareness for local artists, local business, and local innovation. Our contributors are storytellers, diverse in their perspectives and offering food for thought. If ever there were a year to breathe in our mountain air, relish our performing arts, invest in our youth, buy art and shop local, it’s 2025.
One contributor in particular stands out—Jesse Locks. Jesse was born and raised here, and her passion for community is matched only by her love of the arts and her vision for Nevada County as a whole. She markets the Presidio in San Francisco, heads up the Nevada City Film Festival here, and led the inauguration of MUSE. She serves multiple local and regional boards, and—as she terms off our own board of directors—we can’t thank this gem of a person enough.
It's all about people. People who give their all to uplift and preserve our cultures and share what is best about our humanity. This year, as we support a new Community Liaison role for the Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California, Lydell Wyatt; we also say farewell to a profoundly important member of the Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan Tribe.
This edition of MUSE is dedicated to Vice Chair Virginia “Ginger” Covert, beloved mother of Shelly Covert, Spokesperson for the Tribe and a valued member of our own board of directors. I first met Ginger eight years ago when she accompanied Shelly to the inauguration of Sierra Poetry Festival. She has been Shelly’s constant companion and will be deeply missed.
Let 2025 be a year of resilience. Through creativity, and our investment in the arts and one another, let us be kind. As a spoken word artist I stumbled upon once said, “If your heart is broken, make art with the pieces.” Let this edition of MUSE inspire, uplift and guide you.
Eliza Tudor is Executive Director of Nevada County Arts Council.